Valis

9

Wordsworth's "Ode" carries the sub-title: "Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood." In Fat's case, the "intimations of immortality" were based on recollections of a future life.

In addition, Fat could not write poetry worth shit, despite his best efforts. He loved Wordsworth's "Ode," and wished he could come up with its equal. He never did.

Anyhow, Fat's thoughts had turned to travel. These thoughts had acquired a specific nature; one day he drove to Wide-World Travel Bureau (Santa Ana branch) and conferred with the lady behind the counter, the lady and her computer terminal.

"Yes, we can put you on a slow boat to China," the lady said cheerfully.

"How about a fast plane?" Fat said.

"Are you going to China for medical reasons?" the lady asked.

Fat was surprised at the question.

"A number of people from Western countries are flying to China for medical services," the lady said. "Even from Sweden, I'm given to understand. Medical costs in China are exceptionally low... but perhaps you already know that. Do you know that? Major operations run approximately thirty dollars in some cases." She rummaged among pamphlets, smiling cheerfully.

"I guess so," Fat said.

"Then you can deduct iton your income tax," the lady said. "You see how we help you here at Wide-World Travel?"

The irony of this side-issue struck Fat forcefully -- that he, who sought the fifth Savior, could write his quest off on his state and Federal Income Tax. That night when Kevin dropped over he mentioned it to him, expecting Kevin to be wryly amused.

Kevin, however, had other fish to fry. In an enigmatic tone Kevin said, "What about going to the movies tomorrow night?"

"To see what?" Fat had caught the dark current in his friend's voice. It meant Kevin was up to something. But of course, true to his nature, Kevin would not amplify.

"It's a science fiction film," Kevin said, and that was all he would say.

"Okay," Fat said.

The next night, he and I and Kevin drove up Tustin Avenue to a small walk-in theater; since they intended to see a science fiction film I felt that for professional reasons I should go along.

As Kevin parked his little red Honda Civic we caught sight of the theater marquee.

"Valis," Fat said, reading the words. "With Mother Goose. What's 'Mother Goose'?"

"A rock group," I said, disappointed; it did not appear to me to be something I'd like. Kevin had odd tastes, both in films and in music; evidently he had managed to combine the two tonight.

"I've seen it," Kevin said cryptically. "Bear with me. You won't be disappointed."

"You've seen it?" Fat said, "and you want to see it again?"

"Bear with me," Kevin repeated.

As we sat in our seats inside the small theater we noticed that the audience seemed to be mostly teen - agers.

"Mother Goose is Eric Lampton," Kevin said. "He wrote the screenplay for Valis and he stars in it."

"He sings?" I said.

"Nope," Kevin said, and that was all he had to say; he then lapsed into silence.

"Why are we here?" Fat said.

Kevin glanced at him without answering.

"Isthis like your belch record?" Fat said. One time, when he'd been especially depressed, Kevin had brought over an album which he, Kevin, assured him, Fat, would cheer him up. Fat had to put on his electrostatic Stax headphones and really crank it up. The track turned out to consist of belching.

"Nope," Kevin said.

The lights dimmed; the audience of teen-agers fell silent; the titles and credits appeared.

"Does Brent Mini mean anything to you?" Kevin said. "He did the music. Mini works with computer-created random sounds which he calls 'Synchronicity Music.' He's got three lps out. I've got the second two, but I can't find the first."

"Then this is serious stuff," Fat said.

"Just watch," Kevin said.

Electronic noises sounded.

"God," I said, with aversion. On the screen a vast blob of colors appeared, exploding in all directions; the camera panned in for a tight shot. Low budget sci-fi flick, I said to myself. This is what gives the field a bad reputation.

The drama started abruptly; all at once the credits vanished. An open field, parched, brown, with a few weeds here and there, appeared. Well, I said to myself, here is what we'll see. A jeep with two soldiers in it, bumping across the field. Then something vivid flashes across the sky.

"Looks like a meteor, captain," one soldier says.

"Yes," the other soldier agrees thoughtfully. "But maybe we'd better investigate."

I was wrong.

The film Valis depicted a small record firm called Meritone Records, located in Burbank, owned by an electronics genius named Nicholas Brady. The time -- by the style of the cars and the particular kind of rock being played -- suggested the late Sixties or early Seventies, but odd incongruities prevailed. For example, Richard Nixon didn't seem to exist; the President of the United States bore the name Ferris F. Fremount, and he was very popular. During the first part of the film there were abrupt segues to TV news footage of Ferris Fremount's spirited campaign for re - election.

Mother Goose himself -- the actual rock star who in real life is rated with Bowie and Zappa and Alice Cooper -- took the form of a song writer who had gotten hooked on drugs, decidedly a loser. Only the fact that Brady kept paying him enabled Goose to survive economically. Goose had an attractive and extremely short-haired wife; this woman possessed an unearthly appearance with her nearly bald head and enormous luminous eyes.

In the film Brady schemed constantly on Linda, Goose's wife (in the film, for some reason, Goose used his real name, Eric Lampton; so the tale narrated had to do with the marginal Lamptons). Linda Lampton wasn't natural; that came across early on. I got the impression that Brady was a son-of-a-bitch despite his wizardry with audio electronics. He had a laser system set up which ran the information -- which is to say, the various channels of music -- into a mixer unlike anything that actually exists; the damn thing rose up like a fortress -- Brady actually entered it through a door, and, inside it, got bathed with laser beams which converted into sound using his brain as a transducer.

In one scene Linda Lampton took off her clothes. She had no sex organs.

Damdest thing Fat and I ever saw.

Meanwhile, Brady schemed on her unaware that no way existed by which he could make it with her, anatomically-speaking. This amused Mother Goose -- Eric Lampton -- who kept shooting up and writing the worst songs conceivable. It became obvious after a while that his brain was fried; he didn't realize it, either. Nicholas Brady began going through mystifying maneuvers suggesting that by means of his fortress mixer he intended to laser Eric Lampton out of existence, to pave the way for laying Linda Lampton who in fact had no sex organs.

Meanwhile, Ferris Fremount kept showing up in dissolves that baffled us. Fremount kept looking more and more like Brady, and Brady seemed to metamorphose into Fremount. Scenes shot by which showed Brady at enormous gala functions, apparently affairs of state; foreign diplomats wandered around with drinks, and a constant low murmuring hung in the background -- an electronic noise resembling the sound created by Brady's mixer.

I didn't understand the picture one bit.

"Do you understand this?" I asked Fat, leaning over to whisper.

"Christ, no," Fat said.

Having lured Eric Lampton into the mixer, Brady stuck a strange black cassette into the chamber and punched buttons. The audience saw a tight shot of Lampton's head explode, literally explode; but instead of brains bursting out, electronic miniaturized parts flew in all directions. Then Linda Lampton walked through the mixer, right through the wall of it, did something with an object she carried, and Eric Lampton ran backward in time: the electronic components of his head imploded, the skull returned intact -- Brady, meanwhile, staggered out of the Meritone Building onto Alameda, his eyes bugging... cut to Linda Lampton putting her husband back together, both of them in the fortress-like mixer.

Eric Lampton opens his mouth to speak and out comes the sound of Ferris F. Fremount's voice. Linda draws back in dismay.

Cut to the White House; Ferris Fremount, who no longer looks like Nicholas Brady but like himself, restored.

"I want Brady taken out," he says grimly, "and taken out now." Two men dressed in skin-tight black shiny uniforms, carrying futuristic weapons, nod silently.

Cut to Brady crossing a parking lot rapidly to his car; he is totally fucked up. Pan to black-suited men on roof scope-sights up with cross-hairs: Brady seating himself and trying to start his car.

Dissolve to huge crowds of young girls dressed in red, white and blue cheerleader uniforms. But they're not cheerleaders; they chant, "Kill Brady! Kill Brady!"

Slow motion. The men in black fire their weapons. All at once, Eric Lampton stands outside the door of Meritone Records; close shot of his face; his eyes turn into something weird. The men in black char into ashes; their weapons melt.

"Kill Brady! Kill Brady!" Thousands of girls dressed in identical red-white-and-blue uniforms. Some strip off their uniforms in sexual frenzy.

They have no reproductive organs.

Dissolve. Time has passed. Two Ferris F. Fremounts sit facing each other at a huge walnut table. Between them: a cube of pulsing pink light. It's a hologram.

Beside me, Fat grunts. He sits forward staring. I stare, too. I recognize the pink light; it's the color Fat described to me regarding Zebra.

Scene of Eric Lampton nude in bed with Linda Lampton. They strip off some kind of plastic membrane and reveal sex organs underneath. They make love, then Eric Lampton slides out of bed. Goes into living room, shoots up whatever dope he's strung out on. Sits down, puts his head wearily down. Dejection.

Long shot. The Lamptons' house below; camera is what they call "camera three." A beam of energy fires at the house below. Quick cut to Eric Lampton; he jerks as if pierced. Holds his hands to his head, convulsing in agony. Tight shot of his face; his eyes explode. (The audience with us gasps, including me and Fat.)

Different eyes replace the ones which exploded. Then, very slowly, his forehead slides open in the middle. A third eye becomes visible, but it lacks a pupil; instead it has a lateral lens.

Eric Lampton smiles.

Segue to recording session; some kind of folk rock group. They are playing a song that really turns them on.

"I never heard you write like this before," a board man says to Lampton.

Camera dollies in on speakers; sound level increases. Then cut to Ampex playback system; Nicholas Brady is playing a tape of the folk rock group. Brady signals to technician at the fortress-like mixer. Laser beams fire in all directions; the audio track undergoes a sinister transformation. Brady frowns, rewinds tape, plays it again. We hear words.

"Kill... Ferris... Fremount... kill... Ferris... Fremount..." Over and over again. Brady stops tape, rewinds it, replays it. This time the original song that Lampton wrote, no mention of killing Fremount.

Blackout. No sound, no sight. Then, slowly, Ferris F. Fremount's face appears with a grim expression. As if he had heard the tape.

Bending, Fremount clicks on a desk intercom system. "Give me the Secretary of Defense," he says. "Get him here at once; I must talk to him."

"Yes, Mr. President."

Fremount sits back, opens folder; pictures of Eric Lampton, Linda Lampton, Nicholas Brady, plus data. Fremount studies the data-beam of pink light strikes his head from above, for a split second. Fremount winces, looks puzzled, then, stiffly, like a robot, rises to his feet, walks to a shredder marked SHREDDER and drops the folder and its contents in. His expression is bland; he has totally forgotten everything.

"The Secretary of Defense is here, Mr. President."

Puzzled, Fremount says, "I didn't call for him."

"But sir -- "

Cut to Air Force Base. Missile being launched. Tight shot of document marked SECRET. We see it opened.

PROJECT VALIS

Voice off camera; "'VALIS'? What's that, general?"

Deep authoritative voice. "Vast Active Living Intelligence System. You're never to -- "

Whole building detonates, into the same pink light as before. Outdoors: missile rising. Suddenly wobbles. Alarm sirens go off. Voices yelling, "Destruct alert! Destruct alert! Abort mission!"

We now see Ferris F. Fremount making campaign speech at fund-raising dinner; well-dressed people listening. Uniformed officer bends down to whisper in the President's ear. Aloud, Fremount says, "Well, did we get VALIS?"

Agitatedly, the officer says, "Something went wrong, Mr. President. The Satellite is still -- " Voice drowned out by crowd noises; crowd senses something is wrong: the well-dressed people have metamorphosed to the girl cheerleaders in red-white-and-blue identical uniforms; they stand motionless. Like robots unplugged.

Final scene. Vast cheering crowd. Ferris Fremount, back to camera, making Nixon-type V-for-victory signs with both hands. Obviously he has won re - election. Brief shots of black-clad armed men standing at attention, pleased; general joy.

Some kid holds flowers to Mrs. Fremount; she turns to accept them. Ferris Fremount turns, too; zoom in.

Brady's face.

On the drive home, back down Tustin Avenue, Kevin said, after a period of mutual silence among the three of us, "You saw the pink light."

"Yes," Fat said.

"And the lateral-lens third eye," Kevin said.

"Mother Goose wrote the screenplay?" I asked.

"Wrote the screenplay, directed it, starred in it."

Fat said, "Did he ever do a film before?"

"No," Kevin said.

"There was information transfer," I said.

"In the film?" Kevin said. "As story line? Or do you mean from the film and audio track to the audience?"

"Tm not sure I understand -- " I began.

"There is subliminal material in that film," Kevin said. "The next time I see it I'm taking a battery-powered cassette tape recorder in with me. I think the information is encoded in Mini's Synchronicity Music, his random music."

"It was an alternate U.S.A.," Fat said. "Where instead of Nixon being president Ferris Fremount was. I guess."

"Were Eric and Linda Lampton human or not?" I said. "First they appeared human; then she turned out not to have any -- you know, sex organs. And then they stripped those membranes off and they did have sex organs."

"But when his head exploded," Fat said, "it was full of computer parts."

"Did you notice the pot?" Kevin said. "On Nicholas Brady's desk. The little clay pot -- like the one you have, the pot that girl -- "

"Stephanie," Fat said.

" -- made for you."

"No," Fat said. "I didn't notice it. There were a lot of details in the film that kept coming at me so fast, at the audience so fast, I mean."

"I didn't notice the pot the first time," Kevin said. "It shows up in different places; not just on Brady's desk but one time in President Fremount's office, way over in the corner, where only your peripheral vision picks it up. It shows up in different parts of the Lamptons' house; for example in the living room. And in that one scene where Eric Lampton is staggering around he knocks against things and -- "

"The pitcher," I said.

"Yes," Kevin said. "It also appears as a pitcher. Full of water. Linda Lampton takes it out of the refrigerator."

"No, that was just an ordinary plastic pitcher," Fat said.

"Wrong," Kevin said. "It was the pot again."

"How could it be the pot again if it was a pitcher?" Fat said.

"At the beginning of the film," Kevin said. "On the parched field. Off to one side; it only registers subliminally unless you're deliberately watching for it. The design on the pitcher is the same as the design on the pot. A woman is dipping it into a creek, a very small, mostly dried-up creek."

I said, "It seemed to me that the Christian fish sign appeared on it once. As the design."

"No," Kevin said emphatically.

"No?" I said.

"I thought so, too, the first time," Kevin said. "This time I looked closer. You know what it is? The double helix."

"That's the DNA molecule," I said.

"Right," Kevin said, grinning. "In the form of a repeated design running around the top of the pitcher."

We all remained silent for a time and then I said, "DNA memory. Gene-pool memory."

"Right," Kevin said. He added, "At the creek when she fills the pitcher -- "

"'She'?" Fat said. "Who was she?"

"A woman," Kevin said. "We never see her again. We never even see her face but she has on a long, old-fashioned dress and she's barefoot. Where she's filling the pot or the pitcher, there's a man fishing. It's flash-cut, just for a fraction of an instant. But he's there. That's why you thought you saw the fish sign. Because you picked up the sight of the man fishing. There may even have been fish lying beside him in a heap; I'll have to look really hard at that when I see it again. You saw the man subliminally and your brain -- your right hemisphere -- connected it with the double helix design on the pitcher."

"The satellite," Fat said. "VALIS. Vast Active Living Intelligence System. It fires information down to them?"

"It does more than that," Kevin said. "Under certain circumstances it controls them. It can override them when it wants to."

"And they're trying to shoot it down?" I said. "With that missile?"

Kevin said, "The early Christians -- the real ones -- can make you do anything they want you to do. And see -- or not see -- anything. That's what I get out of the picture."

"But they're dead," I said. "The picture was set in the present."

"They're dead," Kevin said, "if you believe time is real. Didn't you see the time dysfunctions?"

"No," both Fat and I said in unison.

"That dry barren field. That was the parking lot Brady ran across to get into his car when the two men in black were stationed and ready to shoot him."

I hadn't realized that. "How do you know?" I said.

"There was a tree," Kevin said. "Both times."

"I saw no tree," Fat said.

"Well, we'll all have to go see the picture again," Kevin said. "I'm going to; ninety percent of the details are designed to go by you the first time -- actually only go by your conscious mind; they register in your unconscious. I'd like to study the film frame by frame."

I said, "Then the Christian fish sign is Crick and Watson's double helix. The DNA molecule where genetic memory is stored; Mother Goose wanted to make that point. That's why -- "

"Christians," Kevin agreed. "Who aren't human beings but something without sex organs designed to look like human beings, but on closer inspection they are human beings; they do have sex organs and they make love."

"Even if their skulls are full of electronic chips instead of brains," I said.

"Maybe they're immortal," Fat said.

"That's why Linda Lampton is able to put her husband back together," I said. "When Brady's mixer blew him up. They can travel backward in time."

Kevin, not smiling, said, "Right. So now can you see why I wanted you to see Valis?"he said to Fat.

"Yes," Fat said, somberly, in deep introspection.

"How could Linda Lampton walk through the wall of the mixer?" I said.

"I don't know," Kevin said. "Maybe she wasn't really there or maybe the mixer wasn't there; maybe she was a hologram."

"'A hologram,'" Fat echoed.

Kevin said, "The satellite had control of them from the get-go. It could make them see what it wanted them to see; at the end, where it turns out that Fremount is Brady -- no one notices! His own wife doesn't notice. The satellite has occluded them, all of them. The whole fucking United States."

"Christ," I said; that hadn't dawned on me yet, but the realization had been coming.

"Right," Kevin said. "We see Brady, but obviously they don't; they don't realize what's happened. It's a power struggle between Brady and his electronic know-how and equipment, and Fremount and his secret police -- the men in black are the secret police. And those broads who looked like cheerleaders -- they're something, on Fremount's side, but I don't know what. I'll figure it out next time." His voice rose. "There's information in Mini's music; as we watch the events on the screen the music -- Christ, it isn't music; it's certain pitches at specific intervals -- unconsciously cues us. The music is what makes the thing into sense."

"Could that huge mixer actually be something that Mini really built?" I asked.

"Maybe so," Kevin said. "Mini has a degree from MIT."

"What else do you know about him?" Fat said.

"Not very much," Kevin said. "He's English. He visited the Soviet Union one time; he said he wanted to see certain experiments they were conducting with microwave information transfer over long distances. Mini developed a system where -- "

"I just realized something," I broke in. "On the credits, Robin Jamison who did the still photography. I know him. He took photos of me to go with an interview I did for the London Daily Telegraph. He told me he covered the coronation; he's one of the top still photographers in the world. He said he was moving his family to Vancouver; he said it's the most beautiful city in the world."

"It is," Fat said.

"Jamison gave me his card," I said. "So I could write to him for the negatives after the interview was published."

Kevin said, "He would know Linda and Eric Lampton. And maybe Mini, too."

"He told me to contact him," I said. "He was very nice; he sat for a long time and talked to me. He had motor-driven cameras; the noise fascinated my cats. And he let me look through a wide-angle lens; it was beyond belief, the lenses he had."

"Who put up the satellite?" Fat said. "The Russians?"

"It's never made clear," Kevin said. "But the way they talk about it... it didn't suggest the Russians. There's that one scene where Fremount is opening a letter with an antique letter-opener; all of a sudden you have that montage -- antique letter-opener and then the military talking about the satellite. If you fuse the two together, you get the idea -- I got the idea -- the satellite is real old."

"That makes sense," I said. "The time dysfunction, the woman in the old-fashioned long dress, barefoot, dipping water from the creek with a clay pitcher. There was a shot of the sky; did you notice that, Kevin?"

"The sky," Kevin murmured. "Yes; it was a long shot. A panorama shot. Sky, the field... the field looks old. Like maybe in the Near East. Like in Syria. And you're right; the pitcher reinforces that impression."

I said, "The satellite is never seen."

"Wrong," Kevin said.

"'Wrong'?" I said.

"Five times," Kevin said. "It appears once as a picture on a wall calendar. Once briefly as a child's toy in a store window. Once in the sky, but it's a flash-cut; I missed it the first time. Once in diagram form when President Fremount is going through that packet of data and photos on the Meritone Record Company... I forget the fifth time, now." He frowned.

"The object the taxi runs over," I said.

"What?" Kevin said. "Oh yeah; the taxi speeding along West Alameda. I thought it was a beer can. It rattled off loudly into the gutter." He reflected, then nodded. "You're right. It was the satellite again, mashed up by being run over. It sounded like a beer can; that's what fooled me. Mini again; his damn music or noises -- whatever. You hear the sound of a beer can so automatically you see a beer can." His grin became stark. "Hear it so you see it. Not bad." Although he was driving in heavy traffic he shut his eyes a moment. "Yeah, it's mashed up. But it's the satellite; it has those antennae, but they're broken and bent. And -- shit! There're words written on it. Like a label. What do the words say? You know, you'd have to take a fucking magnifying glass and go over stills from the flick, single-frame stills. One by one by one by one. And do some superimpositions. We're getting retinal lag; it's done through the lasers Brady uses. The light is so bright that it leaves -- " Kevin paused.

"Phosphene activity," I said. "In the retinas of the audience. That's what you mean. That's why lasers play such a role in the film."

"Okay," Kevin said, when we had returned to Fat's apartment. Each of us sat with a bottle of Dutch beer, kicking back and ready to figure it all out.

The material in the Mother Goose flick overlapped with Fat's encounter with God. That's the plain truth. I'd say, "That's God's truth," but I don't think -- I certainly didn't think then -- that God had anything to do with it.

"The Great Punta works in wonderful ways," Kevin said, but not in a kidding tone of voice. "Fuck. Holy fuck." To Fat he said, "I just assumed you were crazy. I mean, you're in and out of the rubber lock-up."

"Cool it," I said.

"So I take in Valis,"Kevin said, "I go to the movies to get away for a little while from all this nutso garbage that Fat here lays on us; there I am sitting in the goddam theater watching a sci-fi flick with Mother Goose in it, and what do I see. It's like a conspiracy."

"Don't blame me," Fat said.

Kevin said to him, "You're going to have to meet Goose."

"How'm I going to do that?" Fat said.

"Phil will contact Jamison. You can meet Goose -- Eric Lampton -- through Jamison; Phil's a famous writer -- he can arrange it." To me, Kevin said, "You have any books currently optioned to any movie producer?"

"Yes," I said. "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?* ( * Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Doubleday, 1968. ) a nd also Three Stigmata.†" († The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch, Doubleday, 1964. )

"Fine," Kevin said. "Then Phil can say maybe there's a film in it." Turning to me he said, "Who's that producer friend of yours? The one at MGM?"

"Stan Jaffly," I said.

"Are you still in touch with him?"

"Only on a personal basis. They let their option on Man in the High Castle ‡ (‡ The Man in the High Castle, G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1962. ) l apse. He writes to me sometimes; he sent me a huge kit of herb seeds one time. He was going to send me a huge bag of peatmoss later on but fortunately he never did."

"Get in touch with him," Kevin said.

"Look," Fat said. "I don't understand. There were -- " He gestured. "Things in Valis that happened to me in March of 1974. When I -- " Again he gestured and fell silent, a perplexed expression on his face. Almost an expression of suffering, I noticed. I wondered why.

Maybe Fat felt that it reduced the stature of his encounter with God -- with Zebra -- to discover elements of it cropping up in a sci-fi movie starring a rock figure named Mother Goose. But this was the first hard evidence we had had that anything existed, here; and it had been Kevin, who could disintegrate a scam with a single bound, that had brought it to our attention.

"How many elements did you recognize?" I said, as quietly and calmly as I could, to the dejected-looking Horselover Fat.

After a time, Fat pulled himself erect in his chair and said, "Okay."

"Write them down," Kevin said; he brought out a fountain pen. Kevin always used fountain pens, the last of a vanishing breed of noble men. "Paper?" he said, glancing around.

When paper had been brought, Fat began the list. "The third eye with the lateral lens."

"Okay." Nodding, Kevin wrote that down.

"The pink light."

"Okay."

"The Christian fish sign. Which I didn't see, but which you say was -- "

"Double helix," Kevin said.

"Same thing," I said. "Apparently."

"Anything else?" Kevin asked Fat.

"Well, the whole goddam information transfer. From VALIS. From the satellite. You say it not only fires information to them but it overrides them and controls them."

"That," Kevin said, "was the whole point of the film. The satellite took -- look; here's what the picture was about. There is this tyrant obviously based on Richard Nixon called Ferris F. Fremount. He rules the U.S.A. through those black secret police, I mean, men in black uniforms carrying scope-sight weapons, and those fucking cheerleader broads. They're called 'Fappers' in the film."

"I didn't get that," I said, "when I saw it."

"It was on a banner," Kevin said. "Marginally. Fappers - - ' Friends of the American People.' Ferris Fremount's citizen army. All alike and all patriotic. Anyhow, the satellite fires beams of information and saves Brady's life. You did get that. Finally the satellite arranges for Brady to replace Fremount at the very end when Fremount has won re-election. It's really Brady who's president, not Fremount. And Fremount knows; there was the scene of him with the dossier of pictures of the people at Meritone Records; he knew what was happening but he couldn't stop it. He gave orders for the military to bring down VALIS but the missile wobbled and had to be destroyed. Everything was done by VALIS. Where do you think Brady got his electronics knowledge in the first place? From VALIS. So when Brady became president as Ferris Fremount, it was really the satellite which became president. Now, who or what is the satellite? Who or what is VALIS? The clue is the ceramic pot or the ceramic pitcher; same thing. The fish sign -- which your brain has to assemble from separate pieces of information. Fish sign, Christians. Old-fashioned dress on the woman. Time dysfunction. There is some connection between VALIS and the early Christians, but I can't make out what. Anyhow, the film alludes to it elliptically. Everything is in pieces, all the information. For example, when Ferris Fremount is reading the dossier on Meritone Records -- did you have time to scan any of the data?"

"No," Fat and I said.

"'He lived a long time ago,'" Kevin said hoarsely, "'but he is still alive.'"

"It said that?" Fat said.

"Yes!" Kevin said. "It said that."

"Then I'm not the only one who encountered God," Fat said.

"Zebra," Kevin corrected him. "You don't know it was God; you don't know what the fuck it was."

"A satellite?" I said. "A very old information-firing satellite?"

Irritably, Kevin said, "They wanted to make a sci-fi flick; that's how you would handle it in a sci-fi flick if you had such an experience. You ought to know that, Phil. Isn't that so, Phil?"

"Yes," I said

"So they call it VALIS," Kevin said, "and make it an ancient satellite. That's controlling people to remove an evil tyranny that grips the United States -- obviously based on Richard Nixon."

I said, "Are we to assume that the film Valis is telling us that Zebra or God or VALIS or three-eyed people from Sirius removed Nixon from office?"

"Yep," Kevin said.

To Fat, I said, "Didn't the three-eyed Sibyl you dreamed about talk about 'conspirators who had been seen and would be taken care of'?"

"In August 1974," Fat said.

Kevin, harshly, said, "That's the month and year Nixon resigned."

Later, as Kevin was driving me home, the two of us talked about Fat and about Valis, since presumably neither of them could overhear us.

The opinion Kevin copped to was that all along he had taken it for granted that Fat was simply crazy. He had seen the situation this way: guilt and sorrow over Gloria's suicide had destroyed Fat's mind and he had never recovered. Beth was a tremendous bitch, and, married to her out of desperation, Fat had become even more miserable. At last, in 1974, he had totally lost it. Fat had begun a lurid schizophrenic episode to liven up his drab life: he had seen pretty colors and heard comforting words, all generated out of his unconscious which had risen up and literally swamped him, wiping out his ego. In that psychotic state Fat had flailed around, deriving great solice from his "encounter with God," as he had imagined it to be. For Fat, total psychosis was a mercy. No longer in touch with reality in any way, shape or form, Fat could believe that Christ Himself held Fat in his arms, comforting him. But then Kevin had gone to the movies and now he was not so sure; the Mother Goose flick had shaken him up.

I wondered if Fat still intended to fly to China to find what he termed "the fifth Savior." It would seem that he need go no farther than Hollywood, where VALIS had been shot, or, if that was where he would find Eric and Linda Lampton, Burbank, the center of the American recording industry.

The fifth Savior: a rock star.

"When was Valis made?" I asked Kevin.

"The film? Or the satellite?"

"The film of course."

Kevin said, "1977."

"And Fat's experience took place in 1974."

"Right," Kevin said. "Probably before work began on the screenplay, from what I can piece together from reviews I've read on Valis. Goose says he wrote the screenplay in twelve days. He didn't say exactly when, but apparently he wanted to go into production as soon as possible. I'm sure it was after 1974."

"But you really don't know."

Kevin said, "You can find that out from Jamison, the still photographer; he'd know."

"What if it happened at the same time? March 1974?"

"Beats the fuck out of me," Kevin said.

"You don't think it really is an information satellite, do you?" I said. "That fired a beam at Fat?"

"No; that's a sci-fi film device, a sci-fi way of explaining it." Kevin pondered. "I guess. But there were time dysfunctions in the film; Goose was aware that somehow time's involved. That really is the only way you can understand the film... the woman filling the pitcher. How'd Fat get that ceramic pot? Some broad gave it to him?"

"Made it, fired it and gave it to him, around 1971 after his wife left him."

"NotBeth."

"No, some earlier wife."

"After Gloria's death."

"Yes. Fat says God was sleeping in the pot and came out in March 1974 -- the theophany."

"I know a lot of people who think God sleeps in pot," Kevin said.

"Cheap shot."

"Well, so the barefoot woman was back in Roman times. I saw something tonight in Valis Ididn't see before that I didn't mention; I didn't want Fat to fizzle around the room like a firecracker. In the background while the woman was by the creek, you could see indistinct shapes. Your still-photographer friend Jamison probably did that. Shapes of buildings. Ancient buildings, from, say, around Roman times. It looked like clouds, but -- there are clouds and there are clouds. The first time I saw it I saw clouds and the second time -- today -- I saw buildings. Does the goddam film change everytime you see it? Holy fuck; what a thought! A different film each time. No, that's impossible."

I said, "So is a beam of pink light that transfers medical information to your brain about your son's birth defect."

"What if I told you that there may have been a time dysfunction in 1974, and the ancient Roman world broke through into our world?"

"You mean as the theme in the film."

"No, I mean really."

"In the real world?"

"Yep."

"That would explain 'Thomas'."

Kevin nodded.

"Broke through," I said, "and then separated again."

"Leaving Richard Nixon walking along a beach in California in his suit and tie wondering what happened."

"Then it was purposeful."

"The dysfunction? Sure."

"Then it's not a dysfunction we're talking about; we're talking about someone or something deliberately manipulating time."

"You got it," Kevin said.

I said, "You've sure gone 180 degrees away from the 'Fat is crazy' theory."

"Well, Nixon is still walking along a beach in California wondering what happened. The first U.S. President ever to be forced out of office. The most powerful man in the world. Which made him in effect the most powerful man who ever lived. You know why the President in Valis was named Ferris F. Fremount? I figured it out. 'F' is the sixth letter of the English alphabet. So F equals six. So FFF, Ferris F. Fremount's initials, are in numerical terms 666. That's why Goose called him that."

"Oh God," I said.

"Exactly."

"That makes these the Final Days."

"Well, Fat's convinced the Savior is about to return or has already returned. The inner voice he hears that he identifies with Zebra or God -- it told him so in several ways. St. Sophia -- which is Christ -- and the Buddha and Apollo. And it told him something like, "The time you've waited for -- '"

"'has now come,'" I finished.

"This is heavy shit," Kevin said. "We've got Elijah walking around, another John the Baptist, saying, 'Make straight in the desert a highway for our Lord.' Freeway, maybe." He laughed.

Suddenly I remembered something I had seen in Valis; it came into my mind visually: a tight shot of the car which Fremount at the end of the film, Fremount re-elected but actually now Nicholas Brady, had emerged from to address the crowd. "Thunderbird," I said.

"Wine?"

"Car. Ford car. Ford."

"Ah, shit," Kevin said. "You're right. He got out of a Ford Thunderbird and he was Brady. Jerry Ford."

"It could have been a coincidence."

"In Valis nothing was a coincidence. And they zoomed in on the car where the metal thing read Ford. How much else is there in VALIS that we didn't pick up on? Pick up on consciously. There's no telling what it's doing to our unconscious minds; the goddam film may be -- " Kevin grimaced. "Firing all kinds of information at us, visually and auditorily. I've got to make a tape of the sound track of that flick; I've got to get a tape recorder in there the next time I see it. Which'll be in the next couple of days."

"What kind of music are on the Mini lps?" I asked.

"Sounds resembling the songs of the humpback whale."

I stared at him, not sure he was serious.

"Really," he said. "In fact I did a tape going from whale noises to the Synchronicity Music and back again. There's an eerie continuity; I mean, you can tell the difference, but -- "

"How does the Synchronicity Music affect you? What sort of mood does it put you in?"

Kevin said, "A deep theta state, deep sleep. But I personally had visions."

"Of what? Three-eyed people?"

"No," Kevin said. "Of an ancient Celtic sacred ceremony. A ram being roasted and sacrificed to cause winter to go away and spring to return." Glancing at me he said, "Racially, I'm Celtic."

"Did you know about these myths before?"

"No. I was one of the participants in the sacrifice; I cut the ram's throat. I remembered being there."

Kevin, listening to Mini's Synchronicity Music, had gone back in time to his origins.